Subbed! Maybe I’ll see you out on the river some time.
This is one of my better fixed line rainbows….in today’s video.
The BIGGEST TROUT I’ve caught in this river with Tenkara (Keiryu)!
3 Likes
Kris, Great JOB! Those were really some impressive fish. On the Hand-Line-in technique, try stripping them in in stead of doing the Hand-Over-Hand Method. Get a hold of the line just as you are doing now. Then. transfer the line to your first finger and thumb of your rod hand and pinch it for line control. Grab the line Above your rod hand and strip off a arm length of line, out, up, and to the left, while maintaining line control with your rod hand. Repeat as needed to bring the fish to hand. If you need to give line to the fish, let the line slide out through your finger and thumb under tension, but keep control of the line with the first finger and thumb of your rod hand, unless you have to put the fish back on your rod. If that happens, you will have to start all over again from the beginning to land the fish. You will need to re-learn your hand line muscle memory but, in the long run I believe you will find the stripping in method to be faster and easier with better line control…K.
2 Likes
I’ve never even considered doing this.
BRILLIANT!!!
Every once in a while you get a big fish just freak out near the end, this way you can actually feed line out in a controlled way to get the situation settled down.
I’ll practice this a bit so it becomes a natural movement, but thank you!
This is a great tip! It’s demonstrated in this DT video by Dr. Paul at 11:25. *It’s interesting that Mr. Sakakibara uses the hand over hand technique at 16:36.
1 Like
Brian, thank you so much for finding that and putting it up for us to see. I was not aware there was anything on it out there. It is one of those things I figured out myself as a result of many years of fishing experience, It sure took a long time to get to the Stripping IN action in the video and it would be easy to miss if you did not know what to look for. It is a hard thing to explain in writing, but it looks so simple and easy in the video.
One of the reasons I told Kris about it was that I was hopping He would film it because I feel so inadequate in trying to explain how to do it verbally. You have done us all a great service in calling this to our attention. There was also some good footage showing the first finger tip on top of the rod blank in casting and fishing as well, even on big rivers. I believe most T-anglers use the hand-over-hand technique because they have never seen anything else, it just becomes a habit. Thank you again, Karl.
Thanks Karl @T-stillwater. I will give it a try. I have seen the DT video before and it certainly makes sense with a long line.
The DT video I posted to illustrate the strip technique was all about “long line” tenkara. It looks obvious in the DT video at 11:25 that stripping in line provides better and more secure line management-control; I would never use hand-over-hand to retrive line with a fly rod & reel. I am somewhat puzzled though. Does it not really matter with a fixed line rod? Or is there a reason that a true master; Mr Sakakibara used hand over hand with a long(er?) line at 16:36; i.e. less apt to stress the rod tip from a sharp bend with the line to the rod hand? 
1 Like
I typically use hand over hand like @tvdavisid does in his videos because it’s typically one time, wrap the line around finger on left hand to secure it and switch the rod to left hand to use the release tool with the right hand. Works great with smaller fish in particular. Daniel (TUSA) uses hand over hand in his videos I’ve seen as well. I think it’s just what you’re comfortable with, feels natural, or a preference. In my video I mistakenly wrapped the line on my finger with a big fish since the line was slipping though my cold fingers. I’m not overthinking this aspect.
2 Likes
I believe, in most cases, there has been no comparison done with one technique against the other and Hand-over-Hand is something of a misnomer. The back and fourth technique is the traditional technique for Tenkara Fly Fishing, so it is not A Choice but more a matter of doing it the way it has always been done.
The Strip In Technique comes from Western Fly Fishing, where stripping in line is a normal part of Western fly fishing technique using a rod and reel. I am sure Tenkara Traditional Anglers will want to stick with the Traditional Method of line retrieval and that’s fine with me. But one of the advantages I see in the line-strip-in-method, besides better line control, is that the rod remains nearly motionless. With the back and forth action of the hand-over-hand retrieve the rod gets waved around a lot. On the monsoon scoured streams of Japan, where, for the most part there is no brush growing out and over the water or trees above it, there is little danger of catching your rod and line in the foliage. Where I fish, that’s certainly not the case.
The trout that was Stripped-In in the video was stripped in very slowly and carefully, which could also be done with the hand-over-hand method but usually isn’t - we tend to want to get our fish in as quickly as we can.
I believe the slower, gentler method helps to calm the fish down and helps to prevent the violent explosion of thrashing that often happens at the conclusion of a fight unless you play your fish to exhaustion, which is not good for the fish’s survival. So the strip-in technique may be a better fish conservation technique, and who does not want there to be more fish for us all to catch in our waters?
2 Likes